EU and Ukrainian farmers at odds on renewal of trade benefits for Kyiv
EU farmers’ organisations welcomed a vote in the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee calling for more safeguards against food imports in the context of a recent Commission proposal for renewing trade liberalisation measures for Ukraine.
Ukrainian farmers, for their part, want to see the so-called Autonomous Trade Measures (ATMs), proposed by the European Commission on 31 January, renewed.
The ATMs prolong the current suspension of duties and quotas for imports from Kyiv until June 2025. The Trade Committee in the European Parliament will vote on them on 7 March.
Ahead of the vote, tensions are rising between farmers’ organisations in the EU and in Ukraine.
Despite the inclusion in the EU proposal of safeguard measures against excessive food imports, six primary EU farmers and food producers associations consider the measure to be a threat to the stability of the EU food commodities market.
On Monday evening, (27 February), Parliament’s Agriculture Committee approved an opinion in line with the EU farmers’ demands. The opinion is addressed to the competent Trade committee, which might or not take the amendments into into account.
The Agriculture committee “vote proves that a compromise is possible on Ukraine” trade measures and the Trade committee “must draw inspiration from this”, Copa and Cogeca, the poultry processors and traders in the EU, the sugar manufacturers, the maize producers, the beet growers, and the union of wholesalers of eggs poultry and game stated in a joint press release.
According to the opinion approved by the MEPs, safeguard measures should include all the sectors, while the ‘emergency brake’ destined to restore duties on poultry, eggs and sugar, should also cover cereals, honey and oilseeds.
As the Commission proposed the exceeding of the average import levels in 2022-23 as a trigger for this mechanism, Agri MEPs suggested 2021-22, i.e. a pre-war reference.
According to the Agriculture Committee MEPs, the EU should use funds from the €50 billion Ukraine facility to purchase and stock food imports from Kyiv to stabilise market price in case of excessive influx of food commodities.
The amendment refers to the so-called ‘public intervention’. This EU agricultural policy tool implies the purchase and stock of surplus foods by public authorities. It has long been used to manage overproduction, but its use has decreased significantly in recent times.
Today it is still available for products such as cereals (wheat, durum wheat, barley, maize, rice), beef and veal, butter and skimmed milk powder.
Ukrainian agribusiness appeal
Meanwhile, the Ukraine Agrobusiness Club (UCAB) appealed to the members of the European Parliament’s Trade Committee.
“Your vote can be decisive for the economic fate of Ukraine in this crucial year”, they stated in a press release on Tuesday (27 February).
“Any proposals to limit Ukrainian agricultural imports to the European market may spell disaster for the Ukrainian economy,” the statement added.
The Agriculture Committee’s opinion can be taken into account as MEPs adopted it before the vote in the Trade Committee, where MEPs tabled 51 amendments.
Some of them echo the Agri amendments, such as the 2021-22 reference period and the extension of the emergency brake to cereals, oilseeds and wheat.
According to UCAB, the Commission’s proposed safeguards would cost the Ukrainian economy around $250 million of lost export revenues.
“However, if MEPs choose to accept” the amendments called for by the EU farmers associations “the shortfall in Ukraine’s export revenues will be deepened to $5 billion”.
Recently, tensions raised between Ukraine and Poland because of the destruction of Kiyv exported grains transiting in Poland.
The EU Council approved the proposal on trade liberalisation with no changes, as the majority of member states considered it to be urgent to support the country in war.
Because of the EU elections in June, a delay in the decision-making process would mean failing to have the new measures in place by then.
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